Unpaid Internships

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Hazel Blears

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Hazel Blears]

My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. In fact, I think that we have an Opposition day debate tomorrow on the role of the creative industries in our regional economy. The evidence is overwhelming that creative industries are making a significant contribution to the GDP of this country; at the last count, I think they contributed 7% of our GDP, so they are really important.

Also, we very often find that the most creative people come from difficult backgrounds, and that because of their life experience they have a different perspective from other people. I met a fine art student recently. It was heartbreaking, because she clearly had talent, but she was devastated; she said to me, “I can never be a fine artist because of the culture of unpaid internships.” I think she could be a future Monet or Pissarro, but we will never see what she could paint, and she will probably end up doing a fairly normal job, yet she was incredibly creative. That is a great pity, and it is damaging us as a country, as well as damaging those individuals.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I apologise for not being able to stay until 11 am. I congratulate my right hon. Friend, not just on obtaining this debate and on her passion on this issue—I have never been in a meeting where she has not shown passion—but on the enormous amount of work she has done on the Speaker’s programme and on the Social Mobility Foundation.

We have all been in a dilemma in the past. I am committed to what my right hon. Friend is doing and will sign the pledge, but in the past we have all found ourselves not just having short-term volunteer work experience placements, which, as she says, is acceptable, but taking young people from university, on occasions—it is a long time since I have done this—on placements as part of a sandwich course, paying expenses, not realising what the burden on young people would be. In the light of the social mobility tsar’s reflections this week, would it be appropriate to work with universities with access programmes to ensure that resources are made available for those who are expected, and want, to take sandwich-course placements, including in this House?

[Hazel Blears]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and return the compliment: a lot of my political passion has been mentored and guided by him. I have never been in a meeting with him when he has not been passionate—occasionally angry, but determined to make a difference, which is welcome. As ever, he makes a practical suggestion. A number of hon. Members have contacted me, saying that during certain modules on university courses, students have to come to Parliament for up to three months and little support is available. Student loans are in place for that period, but we should be discussing that with the university sector and, if it is a compulsory element, more support ought to be available. Perhaps our campaign can take that forward in a practical way. I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s suggestion.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Hazel Blears

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I think that this afternoon we have established that the calumny that if someone is against this Bill they are against reform and modernisation has been laid to rest. It is absolutely clear that someone can be in favour of a very different second Chamber based on a very different franchise and be vehemently against what the Government propose in this Bill.

Secondly, I think that we have established that we genuinely need as much time as possible to debate this Bill. That has been shown by the variety of views expressed, including by those who are in favour of the Bill and will vote, at least in principle, for it tomorrow night. The views expressed this afternoon about the future of our constitution, the nature of our government, and the relationship between this Chamber and the second Chamber are so numerous that they demonstrate, if ever it needed demonstrating, that we need not only time to scrutinise the Bill properly, but the constitutional convention advocated by at least half the Joint Committee.

We need that constitutional convention for this reason: this afternoon we have had demonstrated a number of substantial constitutional changes introduced over the past 15 years, many of which have proved to be successful, but the idea of one fundamental constitutional change taken in isolation demonstrates that we do not have joined-up thinking in this country about where our constitution is going. We have, as the Deputy Prime Minister himself demonstrated this afternoon, the real danger of the break-up of the United Kingdom and the vote on the future of Scotland. We have the McKay commission on existing devolution. We have propositions on a written Bill of Rights. We have, undoubtedly, in the future a new relationship between the United Kingdom, in whatever guise, and the European Union and the eurozone. We also have a range of minor constitutional changes that have already happened. In those circumstances, taking the future of the second Chamber out of the equation and dealing with it separately does not make sense. Furthermore, and fundamentally, we have also had demonstrated this afternoon the fact that certain individuals on both sides of this House—those on my side and among Liberal Democrats—do see our constitution in different terms.

I have also learned this afternoon, although I really already knew this, that quite a lot of people do not understand the constitutions of other countries. I can only presume that those who have spoken—good Labour friends of mine—do understand what they are proposing when they suggest a system that would actually have the Executive outside Parliament rather than in it. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) suggested that, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) came close to suggesting it. The Liberal Democrats—through the development of proportional representation; through the break with the single-Member constituency; through the advocacy, as is in this Bill, of being able to appoint Ministers who are not from or within Parliament, but who are from outside it and then do not have to be part of the Parliament; and through the criticism of the way in which the Government within Parliament do not allow for scrutiny—are demanding a debate, and it is one that we should have, about whether we should fundamentally change our constitution for the future. I am against that change; I believe that we should elect a Government. A clear mandate from the people for a Government is something people in this country have valued. We can do that only by the single-Member constituency, the electoral system we have and the Parliament to which we give primacy.

[Hazel Blears]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the issue of single terms of 15 years goes right to the heart of accountability and democracy?

[Mr Blunkett]

That is at the heart of the criticism of this Bill. Once legitimacy is given to elected politicians without the accountability of their having to seek re-election and be re-elected, the very fundamentals of democracy are undermined. That is because, as I am on the record saying on the morning after the election, democracy is not simply about electing people; it is about being able to get rid of them. The admirable speech made at the Magna Carta lecture by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 15 June demonstrated that par excellence.